Comet Hartley and the Double ClusterThis image was taken from Spruce Knob in the highlands of West Virginia on October 9 at 1:00 a.m. The image shows the green glow of Comet Hartley 2 as it graces our neighborhood of the solar system on its latest journey to the sun. Also in the picture is the deep sky object known as the Double Cluster. The cluster is made up of two distinct open clusters of stars and are also know as NGC 869 and 884. The comet was visited by the EPOXI Mission spacecraft on November 4 and the amazing images from that visit are featured on this APOD page. The comet's closest approach to Earth was 11 million miles on October 28 and will visit our neighborhood again in April 2017.